Middle Earth Ranger Forum

An image search on something else landed me on this site: they autioned off some original props from the films, and still have photos up.

http://www.julienslive.com/view-auctions/catalog/id/109

this caught my eye - look at the nock on the Ithilien arrows:
... I'm tempted to say that's an off the shelf sporting arrow with either a dremeled down plastic nock, or a custom plastic nock they cast up by the dozen.
(Though I suppose the "real" Ithielien Rangers could have carved them from horn)

Anyhow - thought it might make an interesting project for those with tons of modern sporter arrows they want to make more "real."

Yup, looks like plastic to me. I guess it'd be easier to have unfamiliar-with-archery background characters & extras nocking with moderns than with proper selfnocks?

(unrelated to our pursuits): Scrolling through the listing, I thought the prototype designs for the One Ring were very interesting--always cool to see the different possible directions Weta could've taken.

Given they're for background characters that only briefly appear, I'm betting it was an ease-of-production decision: more visual interest for the camera than simple self-nocked wooden shafts, but casting a bunch of plastic custom nocks is faster than hand-carving each one. Especially since they don't have to actually stand up to a real bow weight.

I don't know why self-nocked arrows would be more likely? They'd certainly have powerful enough bows to require reinforcement.
It looks like they would have used a whole horn tip for each arrow nock. Seems a little wasteful.

Withall, it's very interesting and inspiring to see these actual props!

One could tell a just-so story, but I'd not read too much into what's probably a production choice.

The plot thickens though - sometime after the film there was a parade, and some of the movie costumes were worn. And you can see the nocks there as well - where they look like the same general shape, but carved self nocks:
... which I assume means either a hurried attempt to replicate (lost) production arrows after the fact, or - much more likely - that both types were made. I'm vaguely curious which would be considered "movie canon" - glued on "horn" nocks or simple carved shafts - I'm guessing the carved wood.

Either way, I'll be doing historical self nocks. But it's fun to see nonetheless.

Sometimes they will have a "hero" prop, which is one that's made for closeups for major characters. They will also knock out a bunch of props that they can afford to give to armies of extras.
They are all very cool and collectible.

Wonderful resource, thank you, Elleth! It's a veritable treasure trove of screen-used pics!

Personally, I always figured they designed the nocks to look like either carved horn or carved hardwood, mainly for visual interest. If you look closely, almost all of the arrows in the various films have unusually shaped nocks - I can't think of a single example of your basic carved self-nocks (although the ones on Legolas' arrows are fairly simple). Never bothered me much, since as others have mentioned, it would make sense to reinforce the arrows with another nock material, especially if the bows the characters were using were of a fairly high poundage.

I love the design as they look like horn and have a decent shaped grip.
But how are they mounted?
Are they hollow like a plastic nock to be glued onto a tapered shaft or are they flat to be glued into a notch in the shaft?

One can only speculate, really. They could be wedge-cut. I've seen someone in the SCA make some beautiful horn-nocked arrows in this way recently.

I'm virtually certain the studio prop is a plain plastic nock - whether custom cast or dremelled by hand to that shape I've no idea. I don't *think* it's an off the shelf design, but I know little about modern archery and less than nothing about what was available in New Zealand in 1999.

As to what the "real" arrow the prop was portraying? I'd think wedge-cut makes more sense for that shape assuming medieval-ish tech - but a horn reinforced self nock like English war arrows makes more contextual sense.

Yeah, I mean some of them at least seem to certainly be plastic, while others from the premier do have the look of wood. I'm sure they're meant to "represent" wood or horn though on-screen. Personally, I've never seen a commercially available plastic nock that looks anything like these.